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$15 Minimum Wage: Seattle small businesses may go into the red if a $15 minimum wage is passed

$15 Minimum Wage: Seattle small businesses may go into the red if a $15 minimum wage is passed

by The Charlette Report

by the Charlette Report – A Reader’s Blog

Reminder to Seattle City Council – You don’t have to pass a plan based on “a Charade” Process
Seattle City Council doesn’t have to be bullied.

Seattle small businesses may go into the red if a $15 minimum wage is passed

Despite all the campaign talks, planning and amendments to Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s Income Inequality Committee plan to raise the minimum wage to $15, the fact remains the Seattle City Council always has the option of course not to pass any plan that studies show would damage businesses, development and kill jobs, a plan that a slew of small business owners and the immigrant community have repeatedly expressed their opposition and concerns.

Making history? Yes, in perhaps passing Seattle’s most damaging economic plan. And while some will congratulate themselves on adding a few more dollars to the pockets of what some would have you believe are Oliver Twist employees living in dire “poverty” on the streets of Seattle they are turning a deaf ear to the small business owners and non-profits that employ the majority of low wage workers.
The economy is never at ideal levels but throwing a drastic monkey wrench into what is already a fragile market makes things worse, not better.

And now according to recent statements making headlines from Income Inequality Committee member and Capitol Hill restaurant owner David Meinert, it appears the Seattle City Council plans to pass a plan that followed “a Charade” process of a labor dominated mandate. And unless Seattle City Council doesn’t read local headlines, they would be knowingly voting in an economic plan with a sordid bad history.

With several reports that Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s Income Inequality Committee were given the directive from the beginning to come up with a plan to get to $15/hr minimum wage, or…. its not a surprise that the controversial plan is coming under criticism from a committee member and no doubt we will hear more from other members.

Dave Meinert recently posted statement:

“Recently Mayor Murray announced a deal from the committee, said to be a compromise, claiming it would meet his goal of avoiding a costly battle at the ballot box. Much credit was given for a collaborative process that brought business together with non-profits and labor unions to craft a near consensus compromise. All nice, except none of this is true.”

Dave Meinert is claiming “ the process was a charade” and the effort to get businesses to support it and stop an initiative have failed.

Meinert claims the final plan did not reflect what the committee agreed to, and many important details were changed between agreements at the meetings and drafting of the final document.

That there was “bad faith negotiating” and “political blackmail”.

“In the final negotiations the Mayor’s staff told the business side that we could agree to what they had put on the table (which again, wasn’t what had been agreed to), or the Mayor would draft something “worse” to send to council. That’s not creating a compromise or consensus. It’s bullying.”

Meinert states that he is:

“…so disgusted with this process, and with the inner workings of local politics, the callous disregard for negative impacts on small business and small non profits, that I am feeling pretty done with local politics.”

Should the plan be Thrown Out?

Certainly, if the city was a court of law, any tampered or coerced plan would be thrown out and given the proposed economic plan was not a majority agreement among the original 24 business leaders of the appointed Income Inequality Committee it should send a major red flag waving in the faces of City Council in front of the red signs already saying “$15 Now”. But the city is not a court of law and there is no law to protect the public from the council passing bad policy until term elections come around.

Democratic public process?
I don’t know of any democratic process or good faith agreement where more than half of an appointed organizing committee walks out and the policy is still pressured to pass – except in say…Russia.

In fact, Seattle City Council should always be reminded they have a responsibility not to pass what many businesses and studies are showing is a damaging policy.

I’m reminded of Edward Snowden’s recent comment on NBC Brian William’s interview. Snowden said when asked if he considered himself a Patriot:

“Being a Patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen from the violations and encrouchments from adversaries. And those adversaries don’t have to be foreign countries, they can be bad policies.”

Ah, yes, bad policies! Policies and laws that history have shown have obstructed freedoms and although they seemed right at the time have damaged societies. Its also a bit disturbing when the proposed income inequality plan appears to have developed under duress from a selected group of twenty four business and union leaders that became a private group of “G8” – un-elected representatives that will dictate to the entire City of Seattle business community what to pay their entry level employees in contradiction to the voter approved state minimum wage, the highest already in the nation.

I hope all members of Seattle see and recognize they should not be pressured or bullied into passing bad policy. I believe it takes five of the nine City Council members to pass a proposed ordinance. With three of the nine City Council members serving on the Income Inequality committee, it will be interesting to see how much the remaining Council is influenced by the Mayor, special interest groups and business studies which still do not include an impact study from nearby City of Seatac which raised their minimum wage in Jan. of 2014. Recently, cities like Rhode Island are responsibly requiring impact studies before they pass any legislation perhaps after seeing Seattle set the example for rushed policies that may have a negative impact.

The $15 min. wage campaign was a popular election platform but in today’s hindsight, it is already showing to be killing jobs according to Washington Policy Center.

To date, the proposal is scheduled on the following Monday June 2 to go before the full City Council for a final vote and there will be several initiatives likely on the ballot this November.

It will be interesting to see how small businesses react to indeed a forced economic policy that may put them in the red.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.